Audiovisual equipment, such as televisions (TV), DVD players, and stereo equipment, is often provided with a remote control that is specifically configured to control that equipment. Universal remote controls (URCs) are not associated with a particular brand or device but instead may be programmed to operate one or more devices using a single unit. URCs allow a user to consolidate multiple dedicated remotes into one device, which is useful for managing various brands and types of devices that are commonly used at the same time, such as TV, DVD player, cable box, and the like.
A typical URC is a handheld device with a numeric keypad, recording control buttons (e.g., play, pause, stop, rewind, fast-forward, etc.), and buttons to select various types of equipment (e.g., TV, DVD player, cable box, stereo, etc.). In addition to dedicated remote control devices, smartphones and tablet computers may operate as a remote control or URC, for example, if a remote-control application has been loaded on the smartphone or tablet or if hardware and/or software upgrades have been installed.
Existing URCs rely on manual selection of the device to be controlled by the remote. For example, to control a television, the user must press a “TV” button before the URC will emit commands to operate the television in response to user inputs. To switch control of a DVD player, the user must press a “DVD” button. The URC will then emit commands to control the DVD player in response to user inputs, but will no longer control the television. In existing URCs, there is no intelligence to automatically detect which device a user is trying to control. The user must manually select the desired device before inputting commands to control that device.
Additionally, existing URC devices must be manually programmed before use. This typically requires the user to look up codes for each device to be controlled by the URC. The codes are often presented as a list of codes associated with equipment for different manufacturers. This requires the user to go through a number of programming attempts before identifying the correct code for a particular device. Additionally, the programming steps for most URCs are confusing and awkward because of the limited number and configuration of input buttons.
A further problem of existing URCs is the limited number of devices that can be controlled by a single URC. Often only one television may be programmed into the URC because there is only one “TV” button. The user is limited to controlling only the number and types of devices that the URC is configured to support. For example, the keypad configuration and circuitry for a URC may be limited to controlling just one television, a cable box, and a DVD player.